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Scriptwriting studio · All of Brazil and abroad
Scriptwriter for brands, agencies, production companies and speakers.
Mentoniano is my scriptwriting studio, working with companies across Brazil and abroad. I write scripts for commercials, corporate videos, TV, radio and online campaigns, talks, corporate events and digital content.
A small tremble of the chin, a smile that fills the eyes with tears. Proof that the message landed.
Why Mentoniano
When the audience is moved, the message has done its job.
Ever since I started writing professionally, one request has come up in almost every conversation with the people who hired me:
“It has to be emotional.”
I heard that line for pre-wedding scripts, corporate videos, internal marketing campaigns and product launches. Brands from every industry came to me with different goals, and emotion showed up on every list, almost always among the first items.
So when I decided to give my work a name, I knew where to start looking. The name had to come from the thing that made people seek me out: the emotional factor.
The feedback I got said it all:
“I got goosebumps.”
“It put a lump in my throat.”
“I cried just reading it.”
That is how, client after client, I came to understand something about myself. Touching people makes me feel good. Putting words together and watching those words stir something in the reader is what drives me on every project.
In the room, with the audience
And there is a moment when I feel, with my whole body, that it worked. It happens when I write a speech or a talk that is going to meet an audience. I have had the privilege of being in the room while some of those texts were read, and that is my greatest reward.
Up front, someone speaks, in their own voice, a text that was born on my keyboard and that delivers exactly the feeling I was hired to deliver. I follow the eyes of the audience. I watch my client take a deep breath between one sentence and the next, as if each word were stretching a thread of emotion to someone sitting in the auditorium. Spontaneous applause comes at the end of the key lines. The strategic silences fall right where they were planned. Everything goes as scripted. At the end, the room bursts into applause, and I get the most beautiful confirmation this work can give: we did it.
The chin muscle
When I started looking for a name that represented this kind of delivery, I asked myself a question. What is the first physical sign that a message, something so abstract, has reached the exact point of emotion?
The answer was in the chin.
When a story touches us, the brain reacts before any conscious decision. The areas linked to emotion light up, and that signal travels along the nerves that control the muscles of the face. One of those pathways, the facial nerve, reaches a small muscle at the tip of the chin: the mentalis, called mentoniano in Portuguese. It contracts, pushes the lower lip up, wrinkles the skin of the chin and draws that crying pout everyone knows. The chin trembles slightly, the voice cracks a little, and that is it. You have been moved.
It is an involuntary movement, hard to control and deeply honest. The body confesses what the person felt before they even find the words for it.
That is why I chose the name Mentoniano. Every day, it reminds me of my best skill as a writer and of the desire that brings each person to my work. It is amazing to hear someone's expectations, turn those expectations into a list of requirements and start creating until I meet every one of them, line by line.
The symbol
The brand's symbol has a story too. My first job in communications was as a production artist, so expressing messages through images has been with me for a long time. I wanted a drawing that represented the timeline of a story told in a flat way and what happens to it when it gets a good touch of emotion. It gains nuance, it gains depth, it gains dimension. The Mentoniano symbol is exactly that: a line impacted by emotions. In the animated version, threads of emotion break away from the main thread and form a spectrum of feelings, like the threads I imagine connecting the speaker to each person in the audience.
In parallel
Mentoniano is the studio I run alongside my work as a brand strategist at Eurogarden, where I feel fulfilled and very happy. I have been part of the group for almost ten years, working across one brand and another, and I still wear those colors with the same pride.
Every script I write carries the same goal: to make the audience feel so they remember. When the audience is moved, I know the message has done its job.
Léo Bento
The physical evidence
The body always tells you when a story has landed.
The chin contracts
The mentalis moves on its own, in a small tremble nobody can hide.
The eyes overflow
The tear arrives quietly and almost always comes with a smile.
Goosebumps rise
The chills run up your arms when a scene meets a cherished memory.
The breath changes
The air hangs still for a moment, waiting for what comes next.
When the body reacts like this, the message finds a home in memory. People remember the scene years later, tell someone about it around the table and recognize the brand every time it appears. That is the moment Mentoniano writes for.
What is at stake
People are tired of feeling nothing.
From the first glance at their phone until bedtime, each person wades through a stream of ads, videos, offers and notifications. Almost all of it slides off the screen without leaving a trace.
That excess numbs. Audiences have learned to scroll on autopilot, skip the ad at the first chance and forget everything before the day is over. Generic content has become background noise, and nobody remembers the name of a noise.
In this landscape, a story that moves people has the power of a sudden silence in a noisy room. It stops the thumb, holds the gaze and quickens the heartbeat. People feel it, and what they feel is etched into memory along with the name of whoever told the story.
Emotion is what makes someone remember your brand when it is time to choose.
A question for your brand
Does your communication move the people who find your brand?
Think about your brand's latest videos, campaigns, presentations and events. Was anyone moved? Did anyone remember them the next day? Did anyone tell someone else? Those answers say a lot about how memorable your message is.
If the answers are slow to come, there is a story waiting to be told the right way.
Let's find out together
Who writes
Léo Bento
I am a scriptwriter and the founder of Mentoniano, based in Maringá, in the state of Paraná, Brazil. I have been writing scripts and copy for companies and brands since 2014.
My first job in communications was as a production artist.
My writing begins with listening. Before the first line, I want to know where the brand came from, who the people behind it are and which memory the audience carries without realizing it. From that conversation come the scenes, the pauses and that final line designed to make the viewer hold their breath.
With clients and partners, I work side by side, with no ready-made formulas and no agency vanity. I treat every project as a unique story, told with truth, with care for every word and with a commitment to deliver something people will keep.
Throughout my career, I have moved between audiovisual production, communications and marketing, writing for advertising and marketing campaigns aired on TV, radio and the internet, as well as political and election campaigns. Today I write for advertising production companies, brands, speakers, content creators and companies preparing activities and actions for internal events.
I am a brand strategist at Eurogarden and I have been part of the group for almost ten years.
“Always connecting the message with the audience.”
Léo Bento
How I work
I listen first, write next and deliver a script ready to shoot.
The way I work shows in the projects. Each step below comes from a real job, with a link to the case study where it appears.
- 01
Listening to the people who know the story
Before the first line, I talk to the people who live the brand: founders, team members and whoever will produce the film. The 20 years of Medina Guimarães Advogados were told from that listening.
See it in the case study: Medina Guimarães Advogados - 02
Checking every fact
A number that cannot be confirmed does not go into the script. In the Buysoft videos, every figure went through a validation list before it became a line.
See it in the case study: Buysoft - 03
Writing for the camera and for the budget
Each scene is written with the crew in mind. In the Farmácias São Paulo convention film, a tight budget became the starting point, with a pedal boat, cardboard and hand sanitizer on screen.
See it in the case study: Farmácias São Paulo - 04
Adjusting together with the production team
The script goes back and forth between director, producers and client. For the 30th anniversary of CEMS, the team’s feedback took the film to the real movement of the gym.
See it in the case study: CEMS - 05
Thinking beyond the first screen
A story may need another language or another format. The Uningá film was written in Spanish, for Latin America, and prepared from the start for horizontal and vertical versions.
See it in the case study: Uningá
Who we walk with
Partners who turn words into images.
Many Mentoniano scripts reach the screen through partner production companies and agencies. I join the team as the scriptwriter, respect everyone’s role on set and make a point of crediting the people who shoot, direct and produce.
REC Mart
Ten brands with my scripts and images by REC Mart, from filmmaker Ton Dijan.
See it in the case study Audiovisual production · Maringá (PR, Brazil)ARTT Creative Works
Commercials, daily election programs and a documentary.
See it in the case study Video production · Maringá (PR, Brazil)Claque Filmes
Partner on the Prat's PRO+ and Lojas G campaigns.
See it in the case study Events and experience agency · Maringá (PR, Brazil)gLue
Invited me to write the storytelling for the activations of an aiqfome event.
See it in the case study“He understands the client, finds the right story and writes in a way that moves people. I’ve lost count of how many times the client approved the very first idea.”
Ton Dijan · founder of REC Mart
“He understands what the message needs to do to the audience and opens the paths to get there. (…) As a director, I trust what arrives and I know I have room to change whatever the film calls for.”
André Rodrigues · director and founder of ARTT Creative Works
Our mission
To honor every opportunity with excellent work and leave good memories wherever we go.
What we believe
Feel to remember
Emotion is the tool that etches a message into memory.
Sensitive and strategic
A good script moves people, positions the brand and has goals to meet.
Every story is unique
Listening, understanding and investigating come before any structure.